I’m a firm believer in the opinion that nearly every “make x dollars per day” ebook, forum post, and blog entry has outlived its usefulness for whoever thought it up. It makes perfect sense to me because, at least in my world, everybody is greedy and wants to wring every last drop out of their idea, and when that idea is bone dry and useless, chop it up and sell it to idiots on Digital Point.

My question is simple: If you happen to come up with some brilliant idea, when do you reveal it to others (for bragging purposes)? If you reveal your secret too quickly, you risk flooding an otherwise untapped market. I’m wondering because I think I’ve found a relatively untapped service niche, and while I’d love to tell you guys about it, I’d also love to make a ton of money. I’ve only told two other people (and you guys better keep it to yourselves), so for now, my secret is safe. I’ve been trying to come up with a list of scenarios that would allow me to share my idea, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

I make a hundred zillion dollars

If my idea made me more money than I needed, I’d go ahead and share it with Wickedfire (gotta love that +rep). No sense in keeping it all to myself.

If it can be duplicated thousands of times without flooding the market

Think about local search engine control and optimization. There are thousands of businesses in thousands of cities in hundreds of countries, so there’s no possible way one person can tap that entire market. If my idea had such a huge range, I wouldn’t mind sharing it.

If I’ve already got all of the good niches

My idea involves niches. As far as I know, all of the broad niches are still available. Once I snap up all of the good ones (and get them established), I’d share my idea so that people can exploit the microniches.

They can do SEO better than I can, so even if I have a good niche picked out they could overtake me in the SERPs.

They can outsource the grunt work to a team of cheap laborers and still reap the benefits.

Most importantly, it’s an unproven technique and I don’t want to look like an over-enthusiastic moron.

So, yeah. I’m just going to keep this one under my hat for now. If, by chance, I happen to post a technique a few months from now (with accompanying earnings screenshots), you can bet that I’ve probably milked it for all that it’s worth.

You could sell the technique to people who want to hear it, and cap off the sales to prevent over-saturation. Figure out the maximum amount of people who could be told about it w/out it leading to over-saturation, and then decide on a fair price. People will pay obviously. I might pay.

You don’t want to be one of those ebook idiots, but this would be different since you’re actually selling something of value. Same as Jon selling the TR report, which i never bought but assume wasn’t bullshit. Would you consider doing this?